Round 2: From addiction to recovery

[Paleo Donk]

I've changed my way of eating and am testing a low protein diet. I looked at several starvation and low calorie studies and it seems our daily need for protein could indeed be very low with nitrogen balance achieved around 30-50g of protein per day. It seems that all excess protein intake is simply converted to glucose which is a destructive process that wastes 10-11 ATP, or 30% of a molecule of glucose while giving the kidneys the task of excreting toxic nitrogen compounds.

I want to see if my body runs better without this excreted waste. With this lower protein intake, its absolutely necessary to intake some kinds of dietary carbs at least every once in a while. There seems to be a minimum of at least 40g of glucose needed per day for the body to function well. If glucose is scarce, the body will sacrifice whatever it can to obtain glucose first to keep the body alive. If I do not intake carbs with this low-protein, I will quickly run through my glycogen stores and then start wasting lean muscle to get glucose. The glycerol from the triglycerides provides glucose at a rate 5-10% of fat burned, and not enough to supply the body with its daily glucose requirement.

A very rough daily average intake would be something like 50g carbs, 60g protein and whatever fat I feel like. I am trying to lose weight at about a pound of week so which is about 500 calories a day.

I am 4 days into this little experiment and have kept protein around 50-60g and only have had one carb intake of a large apple, about 30g carbs. I'm unsure as how to intake my carbs and from which sources but will be playing around to find something that works.

Oh, and hi K, I know who you are and have read lots of your journal.

[klowcarb]

Hi, Paleodonk. I've upped my fat and lowered my protein a bit lately. I come from the bodybuilding world, so it is hard mentally to see me not getting 1 g. protein per pound (100lbs. roughly for me). I decided to get at least 88 g. protein a day--my LBM with 14% BF, and the rest fat. So far I feel great and it has not negatively affected my lifting.

I will not be adding any carbohydrates in though. I love just eating ZC and don't want any carbohydrates in my diet, other than the glucose my body makes from protein.  I'll be following your experiment.  Are you using Fitday or a tracking system?

[Paleo Donk]

80-90g of protein a day sounds about right if you aren't going to eat carbs and lifting but as always listen to your body. I don't use fitday, I simply use the figure 20% to determine the amount of protein in the meat. I use the usda nutrient database which is excellent and has a very large breakdown of nutrients, though it ignores antinutrients to look up nutrient ratios. The leanest meat I have ever seen is 23% protein and the fattest is about 15%. My grass-fed beef is on the leaner side and so I use the 20% number. If I'm off by a couple percent it doesn't matter - it will only be a 5g error at the very most.

Fat, on the other hand, seems to be much harder to calculate. Marrow, unfortunately has only been measure from caribou and is 84% fat, 7% protein by weight. Cordain has an excellent paper that analyzes the exact fatty-acids of other ruminant marrow and finds it to be 51% fat, so there is a huge difference going on here. Even suet which the usda has as 94% fat breaks down to just 60-70% of its weight when its made into tallow according to lex, so I'm not sure what numbers to use. I actually don't really care as fat calories can easily come from my body if I don't eat enough. Protein on the other other hand, since it is not supplied from within my body is essential and much more important to track. Carbs are also important track for me as they are very important for sparing protein and refilling glycogen stores in the muscles.

[Paleo Donk]

I just ate some blackberries from an orgainc market. They were mildly sweet but at the same time have left this pretty toxic taste in my mouth. It is not very pleasant. I've tasted this sort of toxic thing before but never this strongly. Also they cost 2.50 for 170 grams or 70 calories worth, so 100 dollars of blackberries would be needed to provide a good amount of calories.

Also, the apple I had a couple days ago was probably the best tasting apple I have ever had. Perhaps my tastes are getting more sensitive to the foods that I need. I can't believe how toxic the berries tasted. Anybody else experience this?

[djr_81]

I can't believe how toxic the berries tasted. Anybody else experience this?

I have but I experienced it before going RAF. Some berries tasted good while others I had to spit out because they were definitely not right.
The two times I had Blackberries a few weeks ago they had a strongly acidic and somewhat cloying mouthfeel but did not taste inherently "toxic". It still wasn't worth it even if they didn't flare my Candida issues up.

[Paleo Donk]

Thanks for weighing in. I left out the other small box of blackberries and ate them today pretty much non-stop once I began. They didn't seem to have the same toxic aftertaste as the others. They didn't taste good either just felt like I needed to eat more and more and so I did. It could have been the seeds that gave the toxic taste? Whatever not a big deal. I'll probably get blueberries or raspberries next time.

These small carb-ups are quite annoying. They are like drugs. I could easily eat a ikea basket worth of fruit right now and I only had about 30-40g of carbs today (had a plum as well). I bought a sweet potato that I'll be trying pretty soon - perhaps part of it raw to see what happens. I don't know how to prepare it. Maybe I'll let it ferment if thats possible. Any tips?

Today I had this 3 minute euphoria type episode in class. It happened after I was reading some of The Black Swan, which is a ridiculously good book. The book is actually pretty healing for me. I feel it supports my main line of thinking and gives me permission to act and think they way I always had and not feel guilty. Well, I had everything connecting and one of the students even said, "I've never seen you this happy". I actually turned away quickly as she said this because I was so happy and could even feel the early signs of tears welling up. The feeling is so pleasant when I get in this stage. My mind works extremely fast and is creative and not dulled down by heavy fog. I feel so uplifted. Unfortunately the feeling faded fast and at one point in the afternoon I was completely devoid of energy to the point I was in pain from just standing. But that also was fairly short lived. Life is so completely different when I was in that little moment. Its like I feel connected to every other atom in the universe. I don't try to think. I don't control anything. I just ride whatever comes to me. I just am.

[KD]

Are berries in season down there yet? I think I picked strawberries around this time once in FL. I dont think local and organic are necessities, but some out-of-season shipped fruit can just taste off, especially with a more defined non-carbed palate. I think blackberries taste more tart anyway, but you said it shifted form box to box so I'm stumped depending on what you mean by toxic.


I think in one of the carb threads they were talking about fermentation of sweet potatoes, that they were traditionally burried. I know kimichiis make use of various roots, that one would probably shave with a peeler and compress without oxygen.. I suggest if eating raw to do the same, to slice very thin, but think raw starch in general will lead to some digestive stress.

I'm glad you had that window, and are figuring out the ways to think and act that create good thoughts and feelings. I think getting over trying to control circumstances and outcomes (for myself) is pretty key to this 'now' stuff.

[Paleo Donk]

I don't know what berry season is for Florida. Maybe they would grow year round in the tropics? Do other fruits have seasons even in the tropics when the weather is about the same? Maybe it corresponds to how much it rains. I liked the blueberries I had a few weeks ago so I'll probably go back to them. They resemble the hordes of wild berries I saw scattered everywhere down in patagonia. As for the sweet potato, its still here on my desk -I'll have to research more, maybe I'll cook half, eat some raw and ferment the rest.Thanks for the encouraging words, those never get old.

I'm feeling pretty good right now, probably best I can remember in the past few weeks. Lots of factors - The sun is fking finally here, though its still cool in the mornings. I've laid out several times this past week getting nearly full body exposure to the sun. I also finally ordered some vitamin D drops from trace minerals which should be here in the next couple days. Not sure why I didn't get this sooner. Also, one of my best friends very coincidently came to Jacksonville to check out a law school he might go to next year. He has been teaching english in spain the last 3 years and so this came as a huge surprise. I went out to enjoy the nightlife for about the third time in the last three months. He's phenomenal at attracting chicks and has no issues asserting himself and is probably one of the most non-threatening hypersexual dudes I know. Just a natural people magnet. I hadn't spent that much time around women in months. Was good fun

Didn't eat any food today, somewhat on purpose Iit was around 5p.m. when I normally eat and I wasn't hungry so I decided to see if I could make it the whole day. I went and lifted and actually had tons of energy at the gym. I felt loose, flexible and more mobile than normal. My strength went measurably down today on overhead press, which is really disappointing and a sign that this lower protein might not be working. Though a couple days ago I set a personal record squatting 305, 5 times.

Also, I started a blog www.steakaholic.com  I'd really like to spread the word about raw paleo and its potential benefits.

[KD]

As far as I know, even in the zones that do grow berries, they go dormant in the winter. This is true for blackberries at least. many fruits won't even grow in the tropics, like many types of berries (although I think they GM some varieties and with persistance do so) oranges etc...the farm I was at in homestead had seasons for avocado, mango, lychee, pineapple, papaya etc..all different. Not sure exactly what the factors are. Although I guess this could be considered as sub-tropical, and the winter temps can get pretty low.

heres an interesting page on growing temperate fruits in FL

http://orchards-fruit-gardening.suite101.com/article.cfm/temperate_fruit_trees_that_grow_in_florida

Great start to the blog.

[Paleo Donk]

Thanks for the info on the fruit. I think I'm going to try and eliminate fruit from my diet. It is unbelievably addicting to me and I have no idea how you guys keep in under control. Last night, my mom sent me this fruit basket and I tore up half of it in just a matter of minutes, even had a delicious chocolate covered pineapple. Adding in carbs seem to be a very fruitless effort so far unfortunately. I've read through some paleo blogs and have decided to give potatoes/yams a run for their carbs.  It seems like few people have had trouble with them and seems to be a much more common thread amongst extant hunter-gatherers. Its also probably closer in size and carbohydrate concentration as paleolithic tubers.

I think a good food does not at all lead to overconsumption, that a natural stop mechanism is signaled.  Unmashed potatoes seem to fit this as I've never particularly craved whole potatoes and remember distinctly not being able to finish them when younger. How the hell do you guys get away with fruit? I just want to jam them down my mouth as fast as I can. Its such a ridiculously strong urge. I might just buy single pieces of fruit at a time. One interesting theory I've seen, is that since fruit is seasonal and wants to disperse its seeds that it has developed a method (namely fructose) to have the animal eating it not be able to stop itself from gorging. It might also be a survival advantage to have no stop mechanism so we could add on a bit of weight before winter set in.

My energy has been on the low side with levels of depression on the low side as well. I still have yet to even put together an entire week where I work everyday on whatever I need to do to help depression. I get addicted to researching and reading blogs and eating fruit to no end.

So, I still have no idea what works for me. Best thing so far is eating fat first, at least 100g worth and then eating some raw meat. Everything else triggers hunger except for exercising which suppresses it during and usually for quite some time afterwards.

[PaleoPhil]

Thanks for the info on the fruit. I think I'm going to try and eliminate fruit from my diet. It is unbelievably addicting to me and I have no idea how you guys keep in under control. Last night, my mom sent me this fruit basket and I tore up half of it in just a matter of minutes, even had a delicious chocolate covered pineapple. ....

Same here. I try to remember how poorly I feel the day after a fruit binge. If I buy fruit I know I'll go through it quickly, so I limit myself to small amounts on the rare occasions I do buy it.

[Paleo Donk]

Yea, it would be a good idea to remember how I feel like after a fruit binge, but yesterday wasn't one of those days and I stuffed myself for an easter feast. Lots of meat but also lots of carbs and even desert. I felt very, very bad immediately after the feast was over. There was a significant bulge in my stomach and I had to lie down. Luckily I went to sleep and woke up fine a couple hours later, even felt pretty clear-headed and alert. Still, there seems to be something very wrong with my digestion. I have yet to produce well-formed stools at all the last three months. Perhaps some were decent but nothing really resembling perfection, though I'm not really sure what that is now. My stools yesterday had some white streak across them, perhaps this is undigested fat?? Also, they all float, which I think points to fatty stools. Also, the 5 years or so preceding low-carb was filled with horrible stool formation so these digestion problems have been around for a long time.

I'm not sure what my 12g HCL extravaganza did to my stomach. I seem to be experiencing acid-reflux for the first time in my life, but this is only after cooked food. Yesterdays inability to deal with lots of food was really disappointing. I did eat a lot but it wasn't a tremendous amount. I also gained 4-5 pounds in the last 3 days, which is probably a good deal of water weight from the excess carbs and Im back up to 188, a weight I can't seem to easily break through.

I'm trying out a liver flush tonight. All I did was mix 3 egg yolks with 3 medium-sized limes. The concoction actually tastes pretty good. I kind of want to make more of it right now. I am extremely skeptical of detoxes but this one seems to have physical proof that it works and endless testimonials of people claiming its benefits. I was supposed to add some oil to the mix but I don't think its a big part of the equation. I'm supposed to either give myself an enema or eliminate with epsom salts tomorrow morning (more likely). If anything weird comes out of me, I will be very surprised.

[KD]

One interesting theory I've seen, is that since fruit is seasonal and wants to disperse its seeds that it has developed a method (namely fructose) to have the animal eating it not be able to stop itself from gorging. It might also be a survival advantage to have no stop mechanism so we could add on a bit of weight before winter set in.

Yeah, I'm not sure about fruits. I'm under the assumption i'm dealing with candida stuff, which is why I'm avoiding them. If I didn't know anything about these theories or raw paleo or whatever, and ignored physical symptoms, I would probably be eating alot more fruit. At the same time, I don't actually have sugar cravings. I have all kinds of fruit and starch around my house, and I prepare alot of basic starchy foods for others, but not a whole lot of desire for it. This is somewhat strange as I do admittedly have minor issues with only consuming raw-paleo/primal food, although since this is not due to cravings I can't describe what the reason is, I guess the closest word is boredom. I have been eating 100% since I started up again, but often I'm not totally satisfied with my choices.

my experiences with food addiction were mostly with the starvation raw vegan diet I was on (i'm not being pejorative of those diets in general, as I was basically told to eat a low sugar, low fat diet, which is basically impossible) so this totally lead to eying foods and occasional binging. I then turned to fruit diet which allowed for binging on fruits, and even though I followed it to the T for almost 2 years, I often had cravings for other carbs, and especially for fats. The rationing you describe with fruits I had to do with avocados and nuts. after some time I realized I couldn't even deal with nuts at all but with avo's I would buy like 1 or 2 for the week or whatever nonsense. I guess my point is, is that fruits probably do have an agenda and so forth but that the simplest answers are probably true. I think that originally fruits were not as sweet, and that many are obviously not designed (like mango) for human transfer of seeds to humans, so modern fruits do in some ways take on the characteristics of junk foods (although I think these comparisons are also hyperbolic) especially in regards to feeding fungus and other unnatural conditions of civilization. But like vegans suggest, even in our utopic tropical paradise a primitive person might find themselves among a grove of some sort, and eat to their hearts or stomachs content, but these people are also assuming these groves are like modern groves devoid of wild animals and things, where one can peacefully sit under and ruminate about lettuce or whatever, when in reality, it would be running from large and small predators and at most gathering and bring back to some primitive form of camp, or for nomads it would be back to kill or be killed.

[Paleo Donk]

I think I have a highly addictive personality and my life is essentially driven by instant gratification and that there is very little in the ways of stopping myself. I get lost in so many activities whether thats playing poker for 10 hours through the night, or being stuck at a stupid flash video game for hours, or endlessly reading paleo blogs or eating fruit. I have enormous trouble stopping myself from doing anything if left on my own. But, it seems like I do have natural "stops" in place for things in life that are healthy for me. I instinctively know how much to eat when I eat raw fat first and then lean meat. I instinctively know how much deep breathing to do. Whenever I work on my anxiety book I never work for several hours. I produce good work in a short amount of time and don't wander around aimlessly. Exercising is the same way.

I tried something different yesterday. Before I went to bed the day before I made a little agreement with myself that I wouldn't go online until I had done a list of tasks. Its spring break, so I have the week off, and right when I woke up, I carried out my plan. You guys might not think this is special, but I did my laundry for the first time in 4 months. I was just wearing dirty clothes this whole time, even stopped wearing underwear. My room was a wreck as well, I cleaned that up. I went to the bank. I checked up some other accounts. I found new car insurance. I read a little. I accomplished so much, probably more than I have in one day - and I did almost all this by noon. I know I perform better when there is structure as my mind wanders so aimlessly, so easily and gets entirely cluttered and worked up over stuff that doesn't matter that I end up doing nothing but reading blogs and research most days.

Essentially there isn't much room for error once I get off track. The slope is so slippery on either side, that once I've fallen it seems to take so much time to get back on track. Thankfully I have the tools to make the slope less slippery and not as accessible, but fuck its hard as hell. So, right now, I should get off this computer, do some meditation or relaxation, work on anxiety book, make a detailed to-do list and go from there and give myself rewards for following through.

Also, the liver flush thing hasn't produced much so far, though it feels like there is something going on in my body. I did eliminate more floating, very thin sick looking turds this morning. A noticed a very thin white hair-like thing on it. I also just drank a bit of epsom salt and water. It is extremely bad tasting so I am switching to milk of magnesia. I'll keep the updates coming and probably do another yolk-lime flush today.

[wodgina]

Keep moving and moving forward. Nip this crap in the bud. Knowledge is your enemy.

[Paleo Donk]

One quick speculation on fruit that I wanted to bring up before I delved more into my depression. Since, we are at a peak in a warm period now between ice ages, more fruit is probably available than ever before. Perhaps, more fruit is available even in the tropics and thus even primate fruit eaters are getting more fruit than on average over the last several million years. I was watching some nature vids on youtube where they showed this one wild chimp, weak, gray, and nearly blind and he was only in his 40's. There are clearly lots of reasons for this but I'm simply using this example to illustrate a possibility that even chimps could not be adapted to such high amounts of fruit.

For as long as I can remember I've been addicted to fruit, especially fruit juice filled with HFCS. I would easily down a liter of mango juice with my dinner and never connect it with my passing out shortly there after. The last couple days, I've had no vegetation intake and today I had some liver which tasted quite good, much better than the last time. I don't like haphazardly attaching a cause to anything but I love speculating and so possibly this was my body letting me know I needed something in it. I also hadn't had any protein before this so that could of affected my tastes for it. It had been several weeks since last eating liver.

My body feels pretty decent right now on no vegetation and after a long talk with my brother on my mental state. Its amazing how he figures me out so quickly. He's pretty much the exact opposite of me in terms of education - I made good grades in high school, made sure I never walked off the line and ended up with a useless masters degree. He barely passed high school, failed college miserably, but has incredible intuition and insight without having picked up a textbook, though he now likes to read. I was always told all my life how smart I was and so I actually believed it for the most part, until these last couple years when I realized I actually couldn't do much outside of academics. In literally almost any category that matters in real life, my brother would surpass me. Its kind of weird admitting this but its true. He just figures things out that matter and can explain in detail his thought processes, while I simply sit on the sidelines acing memorized actuarial exams that have gotten me little. Its not quite this black and white but you get the picture.

Also, I'm going to Miami for spring break tomorrow. I'm not going to bring my laptop and just see what all I can expose myself to, put myself in some different social situations and move out of my comfort zone. I've had decent success doing this traveling on my own in the past, so we'll see what it do. Maybe wounded gazelle hunting - I haven't done this in a while, though I don't stay up late enough now to even see if there are many wounds. Holla

[klowcarb]

Wow, I'm the opposite. Very Type A, love routines. I thrive only with boundaries--which I often set myself. Good going on making a plan and sticking with it! 

[Paleo Donk]

I think I love routines also, or at least love myself more when I write down a routine and follow it. I seem to lose myself so easily if I don't have a concrete plan. My mind is excellent at finding ways to distract itself from the goal if nothing is there to keep it in check. The best things that keep my mind in check are plans, and especially so if these plans involve attractive women that will see the results immediately.

Also, wanted to give an update on my 2nd day of liver flushing. I put down 5 egg yolks with an even higher percentage of lime juice last night. I went ahead and just bought lime juice instead of limes, making this thing far easier to do. I probably won't keep the ratio that high if I do add even more egg yolks from here on out. I did have some gnarly stools this morning. I had three separate pushes that resulted in 3 different colored stools - extremely strange, no? The first push was easy and relieving and resulted in a large amount of soft, light colored mess. The second was smaller and darker, and the third was even smaller and darkest of the three. So, something is happening. I didn't take in any milk of magnesia either.

I'm going to lay off the carbs for now, I've felt great in the past without them. Maybe I will eventually train myself in the future to eat them, but I really can't have what happened this weekend. It was awful. I feel much better now. Perhaps I'll find a happy medium where I will instinctively know when my glycogen stores are running low and need a refeed and then eat the appropriate carbs. I'm still worried about exercise performance, which is one of my main goals.

[Paleo Donk]

Good news and bad news to report as usual. Good news is that I had some really relaxing smooth conversations that were creative, absent of diarhea of the mouth where my sentences seem to splatter everywhere without direction. The bad news is that I was wallowing in extreme lethargy for much of the day. I only slept 5+ hours last night after scouring throw a bunch of research last night. I was in my addiction completely unable to remove myself from the computer. There was much catching up to do from the 5 days in Miami that I was without a computer. I was tired around 1030 but just pushed myself until 2 until I was borderline hallucinating. Its crazy what I will do for instant gratification. In this instance sleep is not instantly gratifying and so my mind rejects this in favor of tirelessly searching. I have about 20 tabs open on this browser alone on a lot of material that I did not quite get through. I feel like I have so much work to do. Not necessarily a bad thing but I need to force myself away.

But now I feel pretty good and about to head to my weekly recovery meeting, something I have not done in about a month. I'm actually pretty excited to go and see the people and join in the active listening. So going to miami was a fantastic experience. I stayed with my Dad's best friend from college who is now recently widowed. The guy really questioned almost everything that left my mouth. Not necessarily at all in a threatening manner, though it did get quite annoying and I did explode on him eventually, but he really forced me to make everything I said crystal clear with no leaks. He picked apart every little part of my reasoning, which really forced me into thinking, yes thinking, something I have been avoiding been stuck in my own anxieties. My mind sharpened like it had before with his mandatory need for explanations - something I have never been good at doing. For the most part, I figure out how to do things without being able to explain back what it took to get there.

A psychologist explained my thinking to me using the following example - She would always tell me how "bright" kids like me were worse at explaining things they learned since the knowledge just intuitively came to them. You ask a smart kid how he knew how to write the letter 'D' and he'll say "I don't know?" but you ask a kid struggling in school and he'll be able to give a more precise, detailed answer. I know its not exactly like this, but the point is that I think this really explains how I think. I don't figure things out really and instead skip over the details and grasp ideas as a whole. This also leads me to think other people understand my thoughts better than they really do. They can't actually read my mind - just because what makes sense to me does not mean that makes the same sense to them. This really is a lack of empathy, the ability to put oneself in another one's place. I feel much more empathetic right now than last week. Empathy is also related to my ability to connect to my surroundings without agonizing and simply reacting. I think I do well with pattern recognition types of intelligence, stuff that looks nice on standardized tests but not particularly helpful in real life.

This also helps explain why my posts often have missing words - my ideas in my mind are clear but I have trouble fully putting all of it down in a readable manner for everyone else. It makes so much sense to me that I rush to get my point across without the thought about how others will read it. I still have to proofread my posts multiple times, like this one, which I am editing now(twice now) to correct for a couple mistakes.

Also, not being able to explain myself clearly leads to me just giving up and saying "I don't know". If an answer does not just spontaneously come to me, I badly want to give up. This has been my modus operandi for years now. I just give up, or cry and pout like a little baby when things don't work out. Its amazing how much I just don't think about a situation whenever a problem arises. I just stop trying instead of thinking critically and asking the right questions. Right now, thanks to my Dad's friend, I feel I can ask the right questions to get out of a jam. But I'm vulnerable as always to slipping back but the confidence is there. Woot.

[djr_81]

A psychologist explained my thinking to me using the following example - She would always tell me how "bright" kids like me were worse at explaining things they learned since the knowledge just intuitively came to them. You ask a smart kid how he knew how to write the letter 'D' and he'll say "I don't know?" but you ask a kid struggling in school and he'll be able to give a more precise, detailed answer.

Been there, done that. It used to be so bad at times in high school that they'd think I cheated.
I'd take a math test and finish in less than 10 minutes with nothing written out other than answers while it took the rest of the class 30+ minutes and they'd have a page or two of scrap paper filled out with their calculations.

[Paleo Donk]

Been there, done that. It used to be so bad at times in high school that they'd think I cheated.
I'd take a math test and finish in less than 10 minutes with nothing written out other than answers while it took the rest of the class 30+ minutes and they'd have a page or two of scrap paper filled out with their calculations.

I'm not alone, again. Nice!

I forgot to mention my liver flush experiment which I did not continue in miami for the 5 days I was there. I did have about 4 egg yolks with some limie juice and a touch of coconut oil a couple nights ago, which produced nothing interesting the next day. My stools seem to be backed up significantly again. If you recall I was having tremendous difficulty, with horrible pain passing malformed stools at the end of my first two months of raw carnivore. The stools became painless once I added carbs, but never even got close to normalcy. I keep talking about stools in my journal since they seem to give me immediate feedback, though I still do not know how to interpret them.

I'm going to restart HCL pills which I only took a few times and thought they were worhtless after getting no burn. I found another journal online of a zc'er who had a very similar reaction to me with the pills. He took 6 one meal, then 8 and eventually up to 20 650 mg pills without a burn. But, he stuck with it, but kept his intake much lower and eventually got down to a more reasonable number. I'm not sure he got down to 0, but he did feel something after 6-8 IIRC. This got me very hopeful and so I took 7-8 HCL pills last night after my meal and felt nothing of course, but it didn't bother me as much because of the other guy's experience. His journal can be found here - http://forum.zeroinginonhealth.com/archive/index.php/thread-2386-1.html

He suffered from poor anaerobic performance and never got to the level he wanted to be at in the 8 months of zero-carbing, even with his much improved digestion with the HCL. He's now doing a Matt Stone inspired High Everything Diet (now renamed RRARF, which I have my own inconclusive opinions on that I will talk about later). I have never had trouble with weightlifting and in fact increased my lifts significantly going vlc/zc.

Today and yesterday I felt what it was like to be both not depressed but physically incapable of doing much. More so yesterday, but the 5 day break away from the computer and in social situations almost all the time with little isolation, as well as being outside seemed to really erase some mental instability. I called one of my good friends that I had not talked to in a year or longer. I emailed her a couple months ago telling her I would call very soon. I kept putting off this call and was in fact kind of dreading it the entire time. Well, I somehow just called her up and had a really inspiring conversation that lasted for more than 2 hours. It was effortless most of the time and I was able to produce uninterrupted streams of thoughts that connected well with her. My mind seems to be in a much better place and this was without any bookwork, just stepping out into the open. I finally feel like talking to the opposite sex in the way that I want to.

[Paleo Donk]

A few things. Grain fed meat is starting to taste much worse to me. I was forced to buy some in Miami this last week and decided to cook part of it because it tasted so bad. Grass-fed meat on the other tastes good, especially the lamb shoulder chops that sit out for a day. They are amazing - the fat content is high and the meat is so tender and soft. I could eat it the rest of my life no problem.

I can't tell if this is a product of my training or my diet, but it appears that I am not doing so well when I lift for sets longer than 5. The first rep seems very light and then the rest seem significantly heavier. I wonder if this has to do with me depleting my glycogen the last week with almost no carbs. For instance, today I deadlifted 425 for a new personal best one time. It wasn't my intention to max out, its just that I didn't feel like doing anymore than one rep. That one rep felt very strong, just that I had no need for anymore. So, with this in mind I decided to just throw on more weight. This was 10 more pounds than my previous max and and whopping 60 more pounds than I had done double-overhand, implying that my grip is probably stronger and also that if I switched to the stronger mixed grip I could have probably deadlifted a bit more. I also maxed on olympic squatting getting 355 the other day. So max strength is up, which is important, but I'm not sure about endurance.

Also, I picked up a canker sore for the first time in a very long time (perhaps since I went vlc 18 months ago). I used to get these annoying sores pretty often in the past and they too miraculously disappeared with the change in diet. Essentially, there isn't one aspect of my health that has improved over the last 4 months. Most things have stayed the same, but a few have gotten worse. I am a bit stronger than ever though and thats about it. Maybe its time for pemmican - something I really don't want to make.

Its kind of weird that raw meat feels great going down and raw fat is satiating but that my stools are so completely awful but they were fine on cooked meat, as was everything else. Well, I'm going to stick it out and get my mercury taken out and then detox from that. I did have this huge swiss chard and an avocado yesterday, which has produced no bowel movements today. I sense something painful in the near future

One good thing as well - the HCL pills seemed to have done something today after 6-8 pills (lost track when I was on the phone). I can't really describe the feeling as a warm burning sensation that others have reported but I didn't feel like taking more

[KD]

I do more of an endurance type set, but have noticed both strength and endurance are up, marginally. But as for my typical daily energy there has been no positive shift yet. So I can relate

Sorry to hear about your elimination, I seem to go back and forth between fully formed/dense, and the more liquidy brain like ones, but almost never full scale liquid and never undigested matter. as for drying meat, Ive only had a bit of the stuff I made, and can't see how removing the water from meat would yield a better bowel situation.

I whipped out the HCL today myself because of my current situation thinking it might aid in getting rid of anything nasty, I havn't been taking them really at all on raw, and after taking them a few times, I got a burn after 1-2 pills so sort of forgot about it. But, I don't know if its because of my current stomach issue, but I took 8 pills and never got anything, although I waited quite a bit between every 2 or so waiting to see what happened. That's also fairly disconcerting, because I would have also though raw would not effect this situation negatively. I have heard that the chloride in salt is a factor in producing HCL, but I've used little salt in the last 4 years, and don't think a few months without it would be such a factor. I'll try again when my stomach is 100% well and make a more accurate comparison. But I wonder if anyone has any ideas of why raw could affect such things negatively, over a similar cooked diet.

[William]

Grain fed meat is starting to taste much worse to me.

Is it really grain fed, or do you mean the kind of meat sold in stores? I would call the latter feedlot beef, while the grainfed I must now buy is from a small town abattoir in an area where there are no feedlots.

 

Maybe its time for pemmican - something I really don't want to make.

Pemmican is an experiment for when all else has failed, but it turned out to be a long-term trial for me because the lethargy took about a year to disappear. The mental/emotional effects are all good, but the physical effects are weird.

[Paleo Donk]

Will, yeah its feedlot beef that tastes terrible-which is fed grain. So there is a difference between farm raised grain-fed beef and industrial feed lot beef? It almost tasted toxic to me, which is why I chose to cook it. Also, I would easily welcome pemmican into my diet, except that is seems like an enormous bitch to make and there is no way I'm going to be smelling up my aunt's house with rendering fat for half a day. Once I go back to my own house this summer I might give it a go.

KD, there have been a few people I've seen that don't handle raw that well at all. Perhaps cooked meat can in some sense or another be easier for the body to digest or process. I still think there is something seriously wrong with my gut.

Though, yesterday after several days of little to no stool, I had one of my better turdings of the year - just too thin, giving me the feeling that something is trapped all along the walls of my colon. So, good news nonetheless, perhaps the HCL had something to do with it.

I'm also going to go do a blood test in the next couple weeks. I think its about time, 4 months on the diet should have given me enough time for my blood nutrient levels to settle to a level that should give significant results. Now, I just need to know what kinds of tests to get, what to look for, and whether or not I should even bother going to a doctor in the first place. I wouldn't mind just going directly to the lab and bypassing the appointment.

Forgot to add - energy during the day is pretty horrible. Still a lot of pain just moving around or even standing up straight. The late afternoons through the night seem to be a bit better after I come home from work.

Also, any suggestions on what to get tested for besides the normal, TGL, HDL, LDL, Serum D, white blood cells?

I'm thinking thyroid - TSH, T3, T4